


Under the Shadow of the Moon

by DenisDenis



Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Aldmeri Dominion, Psijic Order, Void Nights
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2019-08-16
Packaged: 2020-02-26 13:53:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18718393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DenisDenis/pseuds/DenisDenis
Summary: Twenty years after the Dragonborn saved Skyrim, a young Khajiit named Dentzak sets out for Winterhold Academy in search of answers. Haunted by a prophetic dream of chaos and disaster, he will uncover a conspiracy of cosmic proportions. To save his people and restore Elsweyr to its glory of old, he will need some fast friends to help him along the way. Follow his adventures as he tries his best to save Mundus while keeping his whiskers dry!





	1. Chapter 1

On a frozen winter night under the light of Secunda, a young Cathay Khajiit stood on the deck of a merchant barge making its way up the White River. Shivering in the cold night air, he hugged the folds of his cape against him. Two years spent far away from the desert sands had done nothing for his tolerance of the weather up north. His breath seemed suspended in midair as the condensation froze his whiskers. He shook it off with the back of his paw. 

"Hey, you’re still awake."

The Khajiit traveler wasn’t alone on deck tonight: when he’d boarded in Windhelm, a friendly Breton woman was already settled in the cabin next to his. They’d exchanged pleasantries, and if he remembered correctly, she had joked about being prone to seasickness. And indeed, she seemed cheerful enough, but slightly green in the face despite the lack of swell on the river waters. He shook his head in acknowledgement and went to lean on the railing next to her. 

“And so are you, Marielle. The last lights of the city are a pleasant sight for this one.  
\- I wish that I could say this trip is pleasant for me too, Dentzak, but I’m starting to regret not paying the extra fee for a caravan. At least it’ll be over by tomorrow afternoon.”

It was uncommon for a Breton to be so friendly towards him, but he welcomed the company, nevertheless. The woman seemed less prejudiced against his kind than he had grown accustomed to. However, their exchange was cut short by an icy gust of wind that sent a chill down his spine.

“Khajiit apologizes for not keeping you company any longer, but he fears that he may freeze on the spot. Good evening, Marielle.”

He looked at the landscape one last time, his eyes lingering on the crescents of Masser and Secunda, before hurrying back belowdecks to find some much needed warmth. Back in his cabin, he unpacked his sleeping bag, and curled up to sleep after kneading his pillow at length. 

*

The next morning, he woke up to the sounds of shuffling steps as the crew busied themselves with leading the boat around the bends of the river, careful to avoid the frozen shallows. The cramped quarters made grooming a laborious task, but he did his best to tame his long, reddish-brown fur. Marielle’s cabin was closed, but her smell told him that she was still fast asleep. Leaving her to rest, he made his way to the small kitchen for a hot drink and some breakfast. He’d brought his own dried meat, preferring to avoid angering any cooks with his notoriously picky eating habits. 

Dentzak was young, still using the honorifics he’d been given in childhood, but for humans he seemed like a force of nature. Standing taller than most Khajiit at well over two metres, his muscular frame had been a convenient deterrent for brigands and cutthroats on his travels. Whoever might have looked to him for a fight had been further dissuaded by the two long upper canine fangs jutting out from his mouth. Back home, his massive jaw had been the subject of mockery, as it made him speak his native tongue with a pronounced lisp. But here in the north, it meant that any ill-intentioned people stayed well away from him. 

There were three other passengers on this boat, none of which he particularly wanted to talk to. He kept to himself as he drank and ate, listening to an animated discussion between two Nords. The subject was, as it seemingly always was for every Nord in this country, the Aldmeri Dominion. Since Alduin has been destroyed twenty years ago, Skyrim had known only relative peace. The Dragonborn may have removed an existential threat to the region, but her actions had also significantly upset the balance of power. She had been an ally of the Stormcloaks during the civil war, helping them gain independence and breaking the constraints of the White-Gold Concordat. The historic festivities upon Ulfric’s crowning as High-King were also a favorite topic of slightly more cheerful conversation amongst the people of Skryim, it seemed. Twenty years on, speculations were still rife on whether he’d really won a drunken challenge to copulate with a raging bear. On that topic, Dentzak could only hope that this rumor did not reflect a wider Nord lifestyle choice he didn’t know about. 

But Ulfric’s reign had been short-lived: when he ordered the destruction of the Grey Quarter and the eviction of the Dunmer refugees, it seemed that the Dragonborn’s wife had been among the casualties. Ulfric lasted a whole five seconds in duel against her before being reduced to ash by the powerful voice of the woman whose power hadn’t waned since she destroyed the first son of Akatosh. But rather than taking his place, she retired, heartbroken, to the mountains, leaving the Jarls to fight amongst themselves. If anything, Skyrim was an even more chaotic place to live in now than it had been during the civil war. 

These considerations were only relevant to Dentzak in that they made his travels more difficult. The roads had become overrun with bandits, and the cost of hiring a team of mercenaries to help him get to Winterhold College safely was even steeper than passage on this merchant boat. These were troubled times indeed. 

The two Nords’ conversation had now devolved into a shouting match, both of them unable to agree on who was to blame for the current political situation. As the Khajiit were famously still aligned with the Aldmeri Dominion, Dentzak thought it wise to retire for the time being. In any case, his passage on this boat had been expensive enough that he also owed the captain a full day of work. Back on the deck, the crew welcomed the addition of one extremely burly Khajiit. He spent the rest of the day working in silence, letting his mind wander as he went through the motions of physical labor.

*

The sun was low in the sky when the merchant barge cracked through the final stretch of the ice floe to the small trading port at the foot of the cliffs of Winterhold. High up in the mist, the tower of the Academy stood watch over them. As he started to unload some provisions into carts, Dentzak saw Marielle disembarking, with a much healthier color to her cheeks. He waved at her, and she walked up to him. 

“This one is almost done with his work. He hopes that Marielle is also headed for the Academy, although he does not wish to inquire why.  
\- As a matter of fact, I was also going to ask you if you were headed to the Academy. We’re not too far from the town, but it’s almost night-time and I’d much rather go with you.  
\- Dentzak will be with you in a moment.”

He thanked the captain, although the custom of thanking someone else for his own labor never got any less unpleasant. Marielle was waiting a few steps away. They departed hastily for Winterhold, not wanting to chance being out on the road in the dark. Although Dentzak would not have needed a torch to see, he thought it better to press on for his companion’s sake. They arrived at a dilapidated town, barely more than a handful of thatched houses clinging onto the cliff, battered by the frost winds. Even in the daytime, this place would still be gloomy. The inn was surprisingly busy, although a bit too drafty for the Khajiit’s liking. Some idiot was drunk already and was paying the local bard over and over again to play increasingly exasperated renditions of “Ragnar the Red”. Dentzak and Marielle exchanged an unimpressed glance and chose the furthest possible table from the whole scene. 

The innkeeper, a sour-looking man who looked fully disgusted with his clientele, walked up to them to take their order. The influx of visitors to the Academy meant that this establishment was quite wealthy. The offer of a roasted half-leg of venison made Dentzak salivate in appreciation. Marielle ordered a fragrant stew. The innkeeper was barely done taking their order that someone cried out at the bard to change his tune. The drunk man who had requested an endless stream of “Ragnar the Red” got up, red in the face with anger. The bard quickly absconded at the first punch, which sent the drunk man down to the floor for the rest of the evening. The Khajiit shifted nervously in his chair, wondering like he had done many times before when he would be able to leave this land. 

It turned out that Marielle was headed to the Academy to start formal training as a mage. Although she was of Breton descent, her family was actually from a hamlet outside of Solitude, and she had never been to High Rock. The Academy in Skyrim, although less prestigious, left open the possibility of going to visit her family from time to time. Dentzak listened to her stories of a mostly uneventful life in Solitude intently, steering the conversation clearly away from the subject of his own visit to the Academy. She didn’t seem like the prying type, but really, he didn’t know her well enough to share his reasons with her. 

* 

After a chilly night spent in a drafty bed of hay under the rafters, Dentzak finally made his way up the slope towards the Academy. That unpleasant innkeeper was certainly charging through the nose, but then again, there wasn’t anywhere else to go in town. A stony-faced High Elf with a dour look on her face greeted him at the gates.

“Good morning to you! This one wishes to consult a tome in your library, and speak to the head librarian, Urag gro-Shub. Khajiit carries with him a letter of invitation from one of your mages here, named Jo’Zargo. Please let this one in, for he should be granted rightful passage.”

Ever since the Aldmeri Dominion had taken over Elsweyr, a letter from one of the Clan Mothers just wasn’t official enough to grant safe passage. Thankfully, a painstaking correspondence with the only Khajiit at the Academy, annoying as he was, had been the way in for Dentzak. Certainly, given his limited proficiency with magic, he wasn’t getting in as a student. And in any case, he had more urgent things to do than freeze his tail off playing with spell books in this remote and unwelcoming place. The Altmer looked him up and down once more with a frown, then scowled at the piece of parchment he’d handed her. Finally, with an exasperated sigh, she stepped aside to let him through. Whatever she thought of his kind, and no matter how insulting her thoughts might be at the moment, he wasn’t in the mood for it. He walked past her and made his way up the narrow, dilapidated bridge.


	2. Chapter 2

The cane fields around Dune seemed to go on forever in the eyes of Dentzak when he was still a kitten, twenty years ago. On clear days, he would stare at them from the rooftops and wonder at what lay beyond the horizon. Today was one of those days, and the young Khajiit’s eyes wandered over the lush greenery. He felt the warm breeze tousle his messy, reddish-brown fur, as the two long braids down the back of his head swayed gently. The morning felt full of promise for once, like something good was about to happen. 

An orphan from birth, Dentzak had seen his share of hardships from a very young age. Dreams of escaping to a faraway land sustained him on difficult days. He knew he’d been taken in at an orphanage for the first few years of his life, but after that, he’d lived without a place to call home, occasionally teaming up with other street cats, running questionable errands for little pay. He had started making a trade of picking pockets at the marketplace, with a proficiency that would hopefully award him access to more “substantial” work down the line. He wanted to earn a place in the Guild of Thieves, which would finally provide him with a more stable roof over his head and a hearth to keep him warm when the mountain winds blew down on the city at night. He climbed off from the roof and made his way towards the bustling city center, where hopefully merchants would have goods and coin ripe for the taking. 

That afternoon, he came back from the marketplace with hardly anything to show for his troubles. There had been a bit of a commotion when another young cat was caught in the act, and after that, everyone was guarding their purse with increased vigilance. He had, however, managed to lay his paws on a small pouch filled with moon sugar lumps. Selling it wouldn’t get him enough to buy a meal, and Dentzak had seen firsthand the effects of skooma on the delirious Khajiit that littered the alleys of the city, so he’d stayed away from the moon sugar until now. In any case, youngsters like himself didn’t consume the drug unless they were in dire straits. Stomach rumbling, he pocketed the pouch and decided to try his luck again until the evening. 

Night came too soon. The lack of food made him clumsy, so he hadn’t been able to steal anything more. That night, he slept uneasily, tormented by pangs of hunger, his stomach feeling uncomfortably full of all the water he’d drank in the absence of anything else. Morning came with an increasing sense of desperation.  
Dentzak decided to seek out an associate of his, an unsavory man named Jamogh. He was tall and lanky, with a constant snide smile on his face. Most young pickpockets at the marketplace looked to him when they wanted to sell their trinkets, but the man was a bully and took full advantage of the youngsters’ inexperience. Dentzak had been swindled by him many times, but he didn’t know of anyone else he could turn to for the moment. He was hoping that he could either find a job from the man, or at least attempt to sell the sugar lumps. The young Khajiit found Jamogh in a side alley by the marketplace. He was eating a rolled honey cake with obvious satisfaction. Dentzak heard his stomach rumble. The sweet scent of the cake made him feel faint. 

“Good morning, Jamogh! Do you have any more of those cakes to share?”, Dentzak asked, doing his best to conceal how famished he was by putting a nonchalant expression on his face. He could tell the older Khajiit wasn’t fooled by the performance.

“Jamogh doesn’t give away anything for free, you should know by now. What do you want, coming to bother this one with your slobbery mouth and bad manners so early in the morning?”

Jamogh never missed an opportunity to make fun of his long fangs and his lisp. One day, Dentzak hoped he would be strong enough to make him and everyone else eat their words.

“This one was wondering if Jamogh had a job for him today. This one grows tired of the marketplace and would like to see a change of scenery.”  
Jamogh barely concealed his distaste for the young Khajiit, looking at his scrawny figure with a decidedly unimpressed look. If he did have any jobs for him, they wouldn’t be pleasant, he could already tell. 

“Well, perhaps this one does have a job offer for the likes of you. The Guild of Thieves has been looking for someone small enough for a special operation… But as Jamogh said, nothing is given away for free. What price can you pay for the information?”

Dentzak offered up the three small coins he had, hoping that he wouldn’t need to add in the sugar lumps. Jamogh looked at his mediocre bounty with an even more unimpressed look than before, if possible. He scoffed but took the coin anyways. Dentzak did his best to hide his frustration with the man’s affected posturing. 

“If that’s all this one has on hand, then he might be perfect for the job. The meeting point is at dusk at the old storage cabin behind the Honeycomb inn. Now go away, the smell of desperation is unpleasant to Jamogh.”

Going to the meeting point with so little information did sound like something only a desperate youngster like himself would do. And he had to wait around until dusk for a sketchy promise made by someone he didn’t trust. Things really weren’t looking good. 

However, when dusk came, the young Khajiit was in much higher spirits. He’d found the discarded remnants of two sweet meat buns out the back of the Honeycomb inn. Not enough to satiate his hunger completely, but enough to keep him from feeling so lightheaded. He waited at the meeting spot. Soon enough, two Khajiit in thieves’ clothes appeared seemingly out of nowhere. Their tabby fur blended in with the shadows of the shack in the dimness. Quickly enough, they exposed their plan to him. The objective was a large manor outside the city, one of those stately plantation owners’ houses. The place was said to be impossible to infiltrate, but they had devised a route through the manor’s new ventilation system. The vents started from the basement level and distributed cool air throughout the building, but hot air was also evacuated from a vent that went under the eaves of the roof. His job was to climb up to the roof unnoticed, crawl through the vents to the kitchens, and open the back door for the thieves. He’d stand guard as they sacked the place, and then they’d all leave together. His reward would be ten gold pieces if the operation went smoothly, a small fortune for Dentzak. 

Terrified as he was, Dentzak also felt the need to prove himself to these thieves. What started off as a terrible idea might just be his ticket into the Guild. After what seemed like an endless walk through the cane fields, they arrived in front of the largest, most absurdly luxurious house he’d ever seen. Although it was heavily guarded, the three thieves managed to slip by unnoticed. The soft wood of the manor walls gave way easily under his claws. He was onto the roof in seconds. Soon enough, he located the exit vent under the roof and climbed in. The rest of the operation went just as smoothly: sliding quietly through the vents, he made his way to a deserted kitchen, dimly lit by the embers of a dying fire. Dentzak slid the tip of his claw under the metal grating and started to loosen it as gently as he could. The grating finally snapped loose after a minute. He silently dropped down to the floor and made for the kitchen door. The young Khajiit felt incredibly lucky when he saw that the numerous bolts could be drawn by hand from the inside, and the key to the lock was hanging from a nail on the opposite wall. The door opened smoothly, and the two thieves grinned at him as they let themselves in.

“Excellent job. Now, stand guard, we’ll be back before you know it”. 

They had lied about that. Standing guard outside such a heavily patrolled building was unnerving to say the least. Although Dentzak could see well enough in the dark, he felt as if every shadow was ready to pounce on him. What’s more, he was getting hungry again. Feeling restless, he put his paws in his pockets to stop them from shaking. The pouch was still there, and so were the sugar lumps. He’d heard from the older kids at the marketplace that unrefined moon sugar didn’t give you visions, it just made you feel stronger, braver, more alert. Heart racing, he couldn’t help but think this was just what he needed. So, he took out just one lump and let it melt in his mouth. The sweet taste comforted him instantly, making him feel braver already. Then his hunger subsided, and he felt a sense of unexpected strength and vigilance. 

When the two thieves finally came back, the sound of the kitchen door opening startled him. The edges of his vision were getting a little bit fuzzy, but he still felt very confident. They were each carrying a very full cloth bag. With a nod, they all left together. Dentzak did his best to keep up with them as they ran at full speed back through the cane fields again. They arrived at the city gates.

“This one is glad that the operation was a success. Before we go our separate ways, this one wants the payment he is due. Ten gold coins, as promised.”

The two thieves looked at him, then exchanged a glance. Dentzak expected one of them to come up with the money but saw them shrug instead. Maybe this operation wasn’t going to be a success after all. At this point, he felt dread creeping up on him as his vision started to fully deform. The older kids at the marketplace had obviously lied about the effects of the drug as well. The thieves’ faces looked like they were made of melted wax. Dentzak stumbled. In an instant, one of the thieves was right in front of him.

“These kids really are too naïve, aren’t they?”

Dentzak felt his head explode in pain as the thief knocked him out. Light exploded before his eyes, and then complete darkness. He didn’t know how long he stayed there, in the dark, but a voice whispered in his ear. He couldn’t make out what it was saying, the words spoken so softly they eluded his understanding. The whisper swelled into a deafening wind, and from the darkness, the outline of a man shrouded in electric blue light blinded him. The shape of the man split into a mass of luminous orbs, spiraling around him. Then everything went dark again. In the silence, something else appeared: the same shape, split in half, its heart a void, and its piercing red eyes staring right at him with a malevolent glare. When Dentzak opened his mouth to scream, it wasn’t his voice that he heard. Instead, a hoarse and metallic sound ripped through his throat, burning the phrase into his mind: “Only chaos will save your people”. When Dentzak came to, he was sprawled on the steps of the Temple of Mara, back inside the city. When he sat up, two gold coins fell off his chest. Those two thieves hadn’t been so ruthless as to let him be eaten by beasts, but that was small consolation to him. He’d been completely fooled, and the moon sugar had given him a nightmare so vivid it was impossible to brush away. Touching his cheeks, he realized they were strewn with tears. 

*

That dream had changed Dentzak’s life dramatically. At first, he tried to forget about it, but as the vision refused to leave his mind, he became convinced that this dream brought on by the moon sugar had been prophetic in nature. The Khajiit’s search for the meaning of this dream, and what exactly his people needed to be saved from, brought him in service of the Temple of Riddle’Thar, where he learned how to read and write. A steady source of food made him catch up on years of stunted growth, to the surprise of everyone around him. Although the priests hadn’t been able to help him make sense of his dream, they’d taught him so much that he was reluctant to leave when he heard of an ancient tome on the interpretation of visions at the Academy. However, he had resolved to leave Dune, making his way up north in a long and arduous journey that had taken him almost two years. Sidetracked more times than he cared to remember, he’d avoided slavers, thieves, cutthroats and bandits all across the Empire. And he'd done all of it to finally arrive in Winterhold in hopes of reading this book. 

*

Dentzak crossed the threshold of the Academy and welcomed the warmth inside the hallway. The Altmer woman who had been at the gates instructed him to follow her up a set of narrow stairs and down a well-lit corridor to the library. The large circular room was stacked with books as far as he could see. Ahead of him stood an imposing wooden desk, and an even more imposing Orsimer with a grumpy look on his face. The Khajiit walked up to him and introduced himself.  
“This one is glad to meet you at last, Head Librarian Urag gro-Shub. Khajiit has traveled far to meet you, in hopes that you will help me find the answers that I seek”.


	3. Chapter 3

It seemed to Dentzak like the Head Librarian was more of a Head Contrarian. The Orsimer guarded his books fiercely and asked many prying questions on why exactly he needed to consult this tome in particular. But Dentzak had come prepared with an elaborate tale of his life as a researcher in Khajiiti theology. Even so, after the events of the Void Nights, anything even vaguely related to the Khajiiti Pantheon could be construed as controversial in the eyes of an Aldmeri supporter. Thankfully, the Altmer hadn’t been in favor at the Academy for years. Dentzak didn’t know the details, but it had something to do with a Thalmor agent almost triggering the end of the world and being stopped by the Dragonborn twenty years ago. The former Archmage had lost his life in the ensuing battle of magic, apparently. 

Dentzak’s story seemed to be enough for the Head Librarian. He got up from his desk and ponderously went to fetch the coveted book. Finally, the Khajiit settled at a small wooden table and cracked open “Interpreting Prophecy: An Incursion into Dream Visions”. Its leather-bound cover was soft and smoothed over by years of careful safekeeping. Dentzak turned to the table of contents eagerly, scanning for a promising chapter, but decided to start with the foreword and read through the whole thing instead. Better to be thorough. 

Five hours later, Dentzak could have cried. The scholar’s prose was overly ornate, flowery to the point of suffocation. Reading the whole thing was more of an ordeal than he’d bargained for. He stood up, cracked his shoulders, and sought out the Academy kitchens for a short meal. Then, he made his way back to his small desk and pored over the tome once more. In the early hours of the night, he turned over the last page, crestfallen. The book was little more than the incomprehensible ravings of a scholar who Dentzak could easily imagine writing this in a cloud of skooma fumes. The Khajiit let out a beleaguered sigh. He returned the book to the Orsimer, wondering what he could do next. This couldn’t possibly be the end of his quest… He asked the Librarian whether he could think of any other books on the topic of prophecy, or dreams, or visions. At this point, he didn’t even care what kind of answer he’d get. The Librarian seemed to notice the Khajiit’s exasperation, he was even oddly sympathetic towards it. In the morning, he promised, there would be a couple more tomes waiting for him. Dentzak went back to the inn exhausted, but oddly hopeful. Of course, he couldn’t have found the meaning of his dream in the first book he picked up. 

At the inn, his bed in the rafters was still there, but it was so cold tonight that he decided against sleeping there immediately. He sat in the quiet hall, where the embers of the hearth glowed gently while everyone else slept. What could he do to pass the time while he warmed up his tired body? He noticed a pocket-sized book on the table next to his. The cover was embossed with strange symbols he didn’t recognize. But the contents were in plain language. Too curious to resist, the Khajiit started reading the mysterious little book. 

Dawn rose and the innkeeper was surprised to see Dentzak still up, seemingly dazed, with the book closed on his lap. He had seen Dunmer before but had never even heard about the adventures of the Nerevarine during the Third Era. The little tome, simply titled “Morrowind”, had taken him on an incredible journey through that distant land. He’d never given much thought to where the Dark Elves came from. Given that the Khajiit had been enslaved by the Dunmer in the past, that Dentzak could have felt compelled by the story was a testimony to its greatness. The description of the god Lorkhan especially stuck with him. This god, according to Dunmer beliefs, had been torn into two pieces, which made the two moons Masser and Secunda, and his Heart had stayed on the physical plane of Nirn as a powerful and dangerous artefact. Dangerous enough, in fact, to break apart the very fabric of reality. Dentzak thought about the blue figure from his dream, split in half with a hole where his heart should have been. There must be a link between the two. But he feared to imagine what was at stake. Were the moons under threat again? Would they disappear once more like they did during the two years of the Void Nights, throwing Elsweyr back into disarray? If so, must his people watch helplessly once more, waiting on the Altmer to find a solution? Dentzak wasn’t alone in his resentment of their chokehold on his country, and the thought of the Aldmeri Dominion once more parading as the saviors to a people they considered as little more than cultureless beasts made his blood boil with anger. 

In the Khajiiti Pantheon, the moons had been born from the great Cat Mother Fadomai, and her daughter, the goddess Azurah, had protected the Khajiit and told them the secret of the lunar lattice. For, according to the Clan Mothers, if the moons were ever under threat, the Khajiit must be the best climbers, to set the moons back in their courses. Why, then, had nobody been able to do that during the two long years of the Void Nights? More so, Dentzak could not explain why his vision coincided with the mythology of a people that wasn’t his own. In short, he’d found answers in some random book laying on a bar table, but those answers created questions tenfold. Questions, it turned out, that required he find out more about why the Moons had disappeared over a hundred years ago, and why they had been “brought back” by outside forces.  
It was still barely dawn, and the Head Librarian wasn’t expecting Dentzak until mid-morning. He went up to the rafters for a quick catnap, head spinning with possibilities. One thought was more jarring than any other: why had he, a no-name orphan of unknown parents and unrecorded birth, been visited by such prophetic visions?

*

Later that morning, Dentzak woke up with a start. He felt a little groggy from the lack of sleep but was anxious to deliver on his promise to visit the library before noon. Downstairs, the inn was bustling with activity. He was surprised to notice that Marielle was still there. He hadn’t asked on what business the Breton woman had come to Winterhold, but he was a bit curious now. She was sitting at a table with a burly Nord man with an increasingly strained smile on her face. Dentzak went over to say hello. 

“Marielle! This one did not expect you to stay in Winterhold for more than a night! What a pleasant surprise.”

The Nord man turned around impatiently. Whatever unpleasant reply he’d prepared evaporated when the man realized this particular Khajiit towered over him by about a foot. Marielle greeted Dentzak pleasantly: it turned out she’d come here to visit her sister, who was currently a student at the Academy, but they would be leaving at noon for their hometown: their father had fallen ill, so they needed to hurry home while he still had his strength. Perhaps the Nord had first wanted to impress Marielle with a display of toughness, and soon realized that behavior wouldn’t get him anywhere. He introduced himself to Dentzak as Varg and gave him a very moist handshake. 

“So, Dentzak, are you a merchant? What kind of wares do you have for sale? Any chance I could get a little bit of… You know… The good stuff?”. Varg burst out laughing, obviously very impressed by his own joke. Dentzak cringed at this absolute fool of a man. It seemed that drug peddler or thief really were the only two options people considered up North when it came to Khajiit. In any case, Marielle seemed relieved enough when Dentzak offered to walk up to the Academy together.  
As they walked up the narrow bridge to the gates of the Academy, they made casual conversation. 

“So, Marielle, this one wonders what kind of magic your sister specializes in. Has she been at the Academy for a long time?  
\- It’s only her third year, and this is the first time I visit her. I just wish it had been under more cheerful circumstances. In her letters, she says she’s been looking into the history of the Psijic Order, but I don’t understand most of it.  
\- The Psijic Order? I’ve never heard of it, what is that?  
\- I’m not sure how to explain. According to my sister, they’re a group of very powerful mages from the Summerset Isles. Apparently, a member of the order appeared here at the Academy twenty years ago, but it’s all very mysterious. I suppose if it wasn’t, my sister wouldn’t need to research it.  
\- I suppose she wouldn’t. This one thanks you for being so kind these past few days. May you walk on warm sands, Marielle.”

They shook hands before going their separate ways. The Khajiit felt like there were too many important things in this world he didn’t know anything about, and this mysterious order of powerful Altmer mages was one he intended to correct as soon as possible. A discussion with Urag gro-Shub only confirmed his intuition: any books regarding the Void Nights had been removed from the library at the Thalmor’s request, twenty years ago. From the Head Librarian’s expression, Dentzak could tell this had been more of an order than a polite request.

If Dentzak had considered his quest to be dangerous so far, something told him that it was only a gentle forewarning of things to come, now that he was headed for the heart of the Aldmeri Dominion.


	4. Chapter 4

The dense underbrush of the forests around Falkreath was barely enough to keep Dentzak dry against the pouring rain. It had been lashing down for two miserable days now. The Khajiit’s clothes were as damp as his mood. It had taken him well over a month and a half to get this far south of Skyrim in the middle of winter, and although the frozen wastelands had given way to damp, frosty woodlands, he wasn’t making good time. Traveling was pricey enough during peacetime, but in the troubled times that had followed the death of the Emperor at the hands of the Black Brotherhood, crossing the Empire was both a ruinous and foolhardy endeavor. Dentzak had wasted months at a time either waiting for a merchants’ caravan to follow or working to pay for his travel expenses. Things had certainly gone a bit faster at the beginning of his voyage, when he made his money on underground brawls, but he now preferred to travel more discreetly. Or at least, he preferred not to visibly walk out of a seedy back room with large amounts of gold in his pocket anymore. This was a trip he intended to come back from alive. But the Khajiit could only wonder how he’d make it all the way to the Summerset Isles. More than that, he doubted that he’d be let into any Altmer library once he got there. The disdain for all Betmer that the Elves seemed so attached to was, or so he’d heard, particularly strong on the Autumn Islands. He doubted that the “alliance” of the Aldmeri Dominion would be of any help. A foreboding feeling weighed heavy over him, because as he was now, this quest was impossible.

It was early afternoon, although the sky of late winter was so gloomy that it could as well have been dusk. Dentzak was traveling alone: it was only a day’s walk from the now rebuilt town of Helgen to Falkreath, and the road was said to be fairly secure. He walked at a brisk pace, his heavy, sodden raincloak hanging limply over him. The rain muffled sounds and lowered visibility, making him a bit too jumpy for his liking. 

Suddenly, he heard a rustling in the dense woods around him. Ears perked up, he lowered himself in a defensive stance. The rustling seemed to be coming from a short distance away, but he couldn’t make out exactly where. Then, a man’s voice let out a piercing scream from behind. Dentzak whirled around, claws out, his pupils wide, and saw a blast of thunder in the distance. Mages, then. He was fairly certain they hadn’t noticed his presence and the scuffle was unrelated to him, so he slinked into the underbrush, making himself scarce until they left. A few more explosions sounded out, and then silence. A couple of minutes later, a party of six, most likely thieves, sauntered down the paved road.  
They were boasting loudly about their victorious encounter, obviously not a care in the world and certain of their power. None of them looked like mages: the explosions must have come from their victims. However, a large party of seasoned fighters would be a problem for Dentzak to handle, so he stooped as low as he could, hoping they would be on their way quickly. The ground he laid down in was cold and muddy, and he was being crawled on by at least three different species of insects. So, he held his breath and tried to be patient as the thieves ambled along. One of them was even taking deep gulps from a bottle of wine, clearly not in much of a hurry. The Khajiit clenched his teeth and let out the tiniest and most exasperated of sighs. 

Something large fell down onto the back of his leg, startling him. Turning his head as quietly as possible, his eyes widened when he saw a large and very venomous centipede writhe around on his right calf. He raised a paw to swipe it away as quietly as possible… And it dug its pincers deep into his finger. Dentzak yelped in pain, the six thieves turned around, and his cover was blown. Luck like this was why it had taken him two whole years to get to this blasted northern province. Two of the thieves made their way towards him, axes and clubs raised threateningly. Dentzak crouched and raised both paws in surrender. His right paw was comically swollen: the scene would have been funny even to him, had he not been in such pain. 

“And who the hell are you?”, one of the Nord thieves yelled at him.

Dentzak winced, and stayed in his crouching position, hands still raised. He decided to go the skooma cat route: confused expression, slurred words, and accent thick enough to be almost incomprehensible to these Northerners. He started babbling about the moon, mixing in Khajiiti words on purpose, hoping that these idiots would finally let him get back on track. 

But then, a burly Nord thief took a step towards him and backslapped him across the face, sending him reeling in the mud. The group of thieves laughed as they turned around, leaving Dentzak with a smarting pain in his jaw. He was wet, he was caked in mud, his hand throbbed and his face ached. He stood up and let out a furious roar that made the thieves jump in fear. Dentzak dropped his cloak, dropped his shirt, and fished out a couple of knuckle guards from his pocket. He fastened them into place and drew out his claws. The thieves looked over, mouths agape, at his massive frame. Dentzak was exceptionally tall for a Khajiit, so clearly the thieves had not been expecting their adversary to tower over them like he did. His whiskers bristled with fury. He gave the lot of them one cold look before pouncing. 

Dentzak avoided fighting if he could help it, but not from lack of competence. He’d put on an act of helplessness for these thieves, hoping to drive them away without a fight. But a display of weakness often invites abuse as well as neglect. The pain that had reverberated through his skull set off an eruption of anger that had been simmering for a while. All that hard work getting to Winterhold for nothing. His dream vision all those years ago had been so urgent. To find himself stuck like this, frustrated and directionless, chasing his tail in circles over something he barely even understood, was difficult enough. But now these pathetic high road thieves wanted to play tough with him? Dentzak snapped into a fit of rage. Like him, they’d understand what it meant to get crushed under more than you could ever be prepared for.

He landed in the middle of the group and whirled, claws out. The thieves stepped back quickly, but one was not fast enough. Dentzak’s claws caught him under his helmet buckle and slashed his throat. His cry of agony turned to a watery gurgle as he spilled blood all over the flagstones. Some of it splashed onto Dentzak’s legs. He kicked the corpse away and jumped away from the puddle. The last thing he needed now was to slip and fall. The five other thieves circled around him, weapons drawn. When one of them tried to rush him, he deftly sidestepped him, grabbed him at the shoulder, spun the man around towards him, and shredded his face with one motion of his paw as the thief toppled over and fell to the ground. He screamed in pain and clutched at his ravaged face, throwing half-formed slurs at the Khajiit. Dentzak crushed his windpipe under his heel and faced the four remaining thieves, an icy stare in his flat, dark eyes. His pupils had widened enough that the warm, golden tones of his irises had become almost invisible.

The four thieves all ran towards him, hoping to overwhelm him with numbers. But Dentzak dove to the ground, flipping one of the men over with a low kick. He ripped his leather armor off and gored the man, leaving him in a heap on the ground with his entrails spilling out. Then, as the next thief came up over him, he stabbed him through the jaw in a smooth, upwards motion. He followed through with his arm, circling back downwards, so that his claws sliced this man’s neck open as well, from his chin down to his chest. Dodging the axe of the third man narrowly, he retaliated with another swing at the neck. But this one was better equipped, and Dentzak’s claws skidded across the metallic neck guards of his helmet. The next man swung his axe again, and this time the Khajiit grabbed him by the wrist. Twisting it, he loosened the man’s grip on the axe. As it fell to the floor, Dentzak brought the man’s arm up behind his back. The axe clanged on the paved road right as the man’s joints cracked loudly. He screamed, and the Khajiit casually threw him several paces away, face first into a large fir tree. The man crumpled in a heap and did not get up. 

Only one left now, thought Dentzak. He turned around, and the last man was nowhere to be seen. Had he run away? As the Khajiit adjusted his eyes and looked around for him, he felt an arrow pierce him through the thigh, right above the knee. He roared out in pain and anger: an arrow to the knee? If this was the archer’s idea of a joke, Dentzak would make sure it was the last one he ever played on anyone. He cracked off the shaft of the arrow neatly above his wound, and his eyes focused onto the location of the archer. He strode towards him, in such a state of fury that he didn’t even feel the pain in his leg. The archer drew a short sword. Dentzak flipped it out of his hand in one mighty slap of his paw, taking out most of the man’s fingers with it. He then headbutted the archer squarely in the nose. The man collapsed, and the Khajiit fell on top of him as his legs gave out. The man wasn’t unconscious yet, although his broken nose was streaming blood all over his face. Not able to do much more, Dentzak opened his mouth wide, and punctured the man’s jugular with his massive fangs. He rolled over, away from the smelly Nord. 

“Not that he would have bathed anyways if I hadn’t killed him…”, Dentzak muttered. 

Then everything went dark. 

*

When Dentzak came to, it was almost night. If anyone had come along the road while he was unconscious, they had left this gory scene undisturbed. He felt feverish. After all, he’d been lying half naked under the rain, in winter, for what seemed to have been several hours. He tried to sit up, and a stabbing pain seared through his left leg. He reached towards it with his right paw: the centipede bite was swollen and tender. Pushing back the fur around the wound, he saw that the flesh underneath was turning purple. 

None of this was good. He was about a half day away from both Helgen and Falkreath, obviously too injured to make the way to either town. He grabbed a nearby axe from one of the men he’d killed. It was slick with blood but would help him support his own weight. He limped towards the other side of the road, where he pulled his clothes back on. Somehow, the inside of his cloak was still mostly dry, so he put that on, discarding his sodden undershirt. Already exhausted by the effort, he sat down with his back against one of the larger pine trees, and pulled his pack towards him. He wasn’t accomplished enough in medicine that he could safely pull out the rest of the arrow. It looked like it had splintered inside when he fell over that last thief, so he decided to leave it alone. His hand wound was ugly and worried him more. It was too late to suck out the poison, so Dentzak dabbed some ointment onto it and wrapped it in a bandage. He then drank the contents of a small vial for the fever and pain, washed down with a piece of dried meat and the last of his water. Perhaps losing his temper against these thieves had cost him more than he expected. He closed his eyes and sighed, unsure of what to do next. 

As night fell, the rain finally stopped. Dentzak was still sitting under his tree, chewing on another slab of dried meat, trying to summon the energy to get up and go. Once the sound of the heavy raindrops quieted, he felt a weight lift off his mind. He tried to stand up and managed to take a few wobbly steps with the help of the axe. All of a sudden, he heard a muffled groaning sound. He was fairly certain that the thieves were all dead, so it couldn’t be them. To be honest, if it was, that meant a necromancer was around and he’d be dead soon anyways. He took another shaky couple of steps forward. Another groaning sound! This time, he pricked his ears up and listened intently. It was very low, so whatever was making this noise would have been covered by the sound of the rain until now. He heard it again, but this time he managed to locate its source. A few paces off from where he was standing, he could see an overgrown hollow between the gnarled roots of an ancient tree. If he hadn’t been able to see so well in the dark, he would have undoubtedly missed it. As he grew closer, the sounds became identifiable as words: someone was crying out for help! 

Dentzak hobbled over to the hollow and looked down. A tall person, perhaps an elf, was standing and yelling from what seemed to be a muddy cave under the tree roots. The walls of the cave were slick with all the rain that had been pouring down all day, so they weren’t able to climb out. Not that they hadn’t tried: they were caked in mud from head to toe. 

“Is there someone? I thought I heard someone! Please, help me! I’m stuck, I can’t get out! Please, send down a rope! I have money, I can reward you! Please don’t leave, oh please…”

The stranger droned on in an increasingly shrill voice. Dentzak was dizzy and could barely hold himself up, but he managed to call down to them: 

“This one has a length of rope to help you get out, but you must answer a question first: do you know healing magic? This one is gravely injured and could do with some assistance.”  
\- Healing magic? Yes! Yes, I do! Oh, this is wonderful, finally someone shows up, I’ve been waiting for two days now and I thought I would die here, oh but by Stendarr I’m so glad that you’re here now, what a wonderful coincidence…”

Damn, thought Dentzak, whoever this was, they didn’t know how to shut up. He pulled the length of rope he carried with him from his pack and attached it to a nearby tree. Then, he threw the rope down the hollow, and sat down. As the stranger made their way out of the hole, an endless stream of excited jabbering came out of their mouth. Dentzak pressed down onto his forehead, trying to steady himself. This had better be a good mage, or he would send their head flying just for wasting his time and being annoying.   
The stranger cheerfully walked up to him, extending a hand in a friendly gesture. Dentzak had no choice but to extend his injured hand back. The stranger’s overly energetic grip made him yelp. 

“SO glad to meet you, and I thought from your voice that you might be Khajiit. This one had a length of rope… Or whatever, I figured. But that’s fine! I don’t mind your kind at all actually, my cousin’s best friend used to go see a Khajiit merchant to buy clothes five years ago… Maybe you know him? His name was uh… J… Ja… Ja-something, I don’t actually recall.”

Dentzak glowered at them but asked anyways. 

“So… You said that you could heal this one in exchange for help?”  
\- Oh, what was I thinking, of course! Where are you injured? What happened to you? Were you in a fight? I’ve never really been in a fight, my main interest is actually botany, so you know…”  
\- Yes, yes, that’s very nice. This one has a centipede bite on the hand, which is concerning because the flesh around it has started to go necrotic… And this one also took an… Well… An arrow to the knee.”

The stranger burst out laughing and slung off a very large bag from their shoulder. Dentzak figured this extra weight was probably the main reason why they got stuck in the hollow. But for all he could tell, the stranger might have fallen in a ditch out of sheer stupidity. 

“Here, swallow this, and once you’re done bite down on this piece of leather. I don’t want you chewing my arm off when I pull the wood splinters out of your leg.”

The potion tasted incredibly bitter, but Dentzak drank it all. The stranger had handed him a leather belt that was probably sturdy for their willowy frame but seemed quite puny against his fangs. Now that Dentzak saw them up close, he was sure that this was an elf. What kind, he wasn’t sure. In any case, the elf chuckled and pulled out what looked like a large pair of pincers. 

“Do you mind taking your breeches off? Or ripping the leg so I can take a look, they’re ruined with all the blood on them anyways. Unless that’s your style, I don’t want to assume, maybe you’re the kind of person who likes to give off a… Menacing aura or something…”

Dentzak sliced his trouser leg open with the edge of a claw and pulled the frayed material back. It looked pretty gruesome, the arrowhead was lodged deep. He barely had time to wince: the elf placed a firm grip on the wood protruding from his thigh. 

“Okay, on three: one, two, three!” 

The stranger had pulled on two. Dentzak let out a high-pitched yowl and hissed. The stranger tumbled backwards, arrow cleanly in hand. The wound started squirting blood profusely: if it hadn’t hit a vein on its way in, it certainly had on the way out. The stranger scrambled back towards him and placed two glowing hands onto his leg. A warm golden light diffused along his body, energizing him and closing up the wound. 

“That should take care of it for now, and tomorrow we can walk back to Falkreath and work on it some more. My name is Nirenwe by the way, I’m the head of Botanical studies at Skywatch. I’ve been on the field for a few years now, I’m looking for traces of my mentor who disappeared somewhere in Skyrim years ago. Nice to meet you and thank you again for helping me…?  
\- Dentzak. A scholar who longs to feel the warm sands under his feet again and thanks you also for your help.”


End file.
